Sunrise team grill Sam
2:57

The Sunrise crew awkwardly grill Sam Armytage over her long lunch with Modern Family star, Eric Stonestreet. Courtesy Channel Seven/Sunrise

news.com.au

10 Mar 2014

Entertainment

IT’S exactly a year since Samatha Armytage was announced as Melissa Doyle’s replacement on Sunrise, but already she’s being asked about how long she’ll stay.

While Armytage is reluctant to put a time frame on her sojourn with the breakfast program, she’s clear about one thing — she won’t be staying anywhere near as long as the 14 years that her predecessor did.

From the moment Armytage was announced as the new doyenne of breakfast TV, her ‘sex appeal’ was front and centre, but it’s something she says she doesn’t understand, doesn’t value and doesn’t seek.

“I am a daggy journalist who doesn’t have time to get a manicure. I don’t consider myself that sexy, but if you guys want to say it, I’ll take it.”

But her appearance became a talking point when executives chose her to replace Melissa Doyle — and it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“I thought, ‘Why am I being criticised for this stuff?’ It just feels like you have to go down into the boxing pose and put your hands up and your head down,” she says.

“Don’t forget I had to go on air every day and be ‘normal’, but afterwards I felt a bit angry. I thought, ‘That was a promotion for me, it wasn’t my fault, I hadn’t done anything wrong.’”

Armytage’s childhood on the historic Bolaro Station in NSW’s Snowy Mountains was a world away from the glamour of television.

Samantha Armytage appears on the cover of this week’s Sunday Style.Source: Sunday Style

“I was so shy, the shyest kid you could find,” she says. “I used to blush up my neck and go red if an adult spoke to me.”

Armytage went to Kincoppal-Rose Bay, a private girls’ boarding school, then Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, originally intending to study public relations.

Working first at WIN Television in Canberra and then as a political correspondent for Sky News, she was quickly headhunted by Seven, where her star soon rose.

“I remember being at Epping when I first started at Seven about 11 years ago,” she says. “I think Roscoe [the late newsreader Ian Ross] was sick one day, and [former Seven CEO] David Leckie rang me and said, ‘You’re reading the 6pm news.’

“I said, ‘I’m doing what?’ I remember sitting there, getting really nervous and feeling quite ill. And then just thinking, ‘People don’t want to see you nervous … so just get over it.’”

One day, Sunrise Executive Producer Michael Pell — now a close friend — rang her at 6am and asked her to audition for Weekend Sunrise straight after that morning’s show. Despite a hangover, she nailed it. “It’s not something everyone can do,” says Pell. “It requires a different level of versatility. As soon as she sat in front of the camera she was a natural.”

And so started the ongoing public fascination with Armytage, her weight and her love life.

She eats healthily and exercises every day, but says she doesn’t understand why people are so obsessed with her size.

“I’m not, I never have been and I don’t want to be [skinny]. If everyone else wants to talk about [my weight], I can’t stop them, but it doesn’t really interest me.”

Seven’s Sam Armytage.Source: News Limited

As for her single status, she admits the anti-social Sunrise hours can be an obstacle to dating.

But don’t feel sorry for her, she says.

“It’s not easy, but it’s doable. I’m not panicking. It hopefully will happen, but I’d rather sit at home with a good book than date the wrong person.“I was reading the other day that the [Sydney] Swans have a ‘no dickheads’ policy. I thought, ‘I’m going to adopt that.’ I’m busy, I have a lot going on, I have a lot to offer. Until the right person comes along, I’ll have fun. I’ll have lunch. I’ll have a good time.”

Armytage’s next TV project sees her front new reality body transformation program, Bringing Sexy Back, which will air later this year.

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